Time To Address A Redress
Shepard Fairey. If you have a pulse, live in the United States and have access to the media in any of it’s various forms, you’ve heard of this gentleman. Doubtless, you’ve heard his name amidst claims of plagiarism and theft. First it was the Associated Press accusing him of copyright infringement for borrowing from an image one of their photographers took of then-congressman Obama. Hoards of people jumped on the “OMG, like $ue him, dude! He hates your artistic soul!” bandwagon. Some were honestly against Fairey’s appropriations (like Milton Glaser, who shared some less than kind words about Fairey.) Following that, other artists came in upset about Fairey’s appropriations including Ed Nachtrieb.
It’s time to address and end this silly debate. For most of those who are on the offensive toward Fairey, they fall into one of two camps. The first, and most common, camp includes the historically ignorant. These folks seem to be completely unaware of art history as they claim that Fairey should at least “cite” or “give credit” to those whose works he appropriates. Let’s think about this in terms of other mediums for a minute:
Books - Authors commonly cite other authors, borrow from cultural events, and quote pop culture figures under the guise of an alias. Commonly, these cues are represented by a visual cue: the quotation mark. Yes, I’m quoting this! I want you to see it! Of course, the idea is that you will recognize the quote. If you don’t, then they haven’t necessarily given the author credit, they’ve just mentioned that it’s not their own original phrasing.
Music - When was the last time you saw a rock artist cite Bach? You haven’t you say? Well then clearly those theifs all need to be prosecuted. Get going, you have most of the last 100 years of music to go arrest.
And then there’s that art history thing I mentioned before. DuChamp superimposed his face on the Mona Lisa and called it his. He never cited Da Vinci. Warhol painted the Campbell’s can and a Brillo box. He never gave credit to those designers. Have you heard of Raphael’s Modonna and Child? Pick one.
The second group of people are those who seem to think that Mr. Fairey is some ignorant fool who just wants to make money by stealing images. This group, whose complaint is far more realistic, is still missing a few parts of the truth. First, Mr. Fairey sells his prints at minimal cost on small runs and doesn’t sell competitively on the market. Did anyone also notice that he gave away the Obama image? It wasn’t sold to the campaign, it was a donation. His non-competitive approach makes it fairly clear he’s not doing it for money. He would make loads more selling his prints at five times the cost, and would get just as many buyers.
And, last, to address Mr. Nachtrieb’s complaint that Fairey misuses his image because “with no attachment to it’s original context or how it fits into the Chinese story” it loses it’s original meaning and significance. First, Mr. Nachtrieb’s original photo also does not indicate that this was the first appearance of weapons on the Beijing streets. Second, those in the US who are educated will clearly recognize those soldiers as members of the red army during the revolution. The rest of the folks who wouldn’t know that wouldn’t know it in Nachtrieb’s image either. Both images do give a minimum story of Maoist soldiers on the move. What’s important, and where Mr. Nachtrieb seems to miss the point, is that Mr. Fairey’s image is only important because of the context of Mr Nachtrieb’s photo. The accusation is that it loses it’s context, when in reality Fairey’s image only makes sense because of the original context juxtaposed with contradictory elements.
I’m well beyond my word count, but I hope this clears up a very small part of this complex issue.
They Came Out of Nowhere, Officer! I Swear!
Shannon said this wasn’t based in truth, like most of the other comics. I corrected her. I never claimed this happened, just that I’m neurotic enough to plan for it.
It’s been a while…
As you may have noticed if you come to the site on occassion, it’s been a while since I’ve last contributed. While I could just as easily attribute this to a lack of material, there have been a few things going on in the real world. First off, I’ve now Made a Mrs. Seriously. I’m pretty sure she still has no idea what she’s in for over the next lifetime (although she does occasionally come here and see me make a fool of myself with things like the banana smack…) Mrs. Seriously and I also made a trip to the Hawaiian islands over the last week as well, so I’ve been disconnected for about ten days now. This may sound like a lot, but I’ve realized a few things:
• When you’ve been offline for a while, you realize how much you don’t miss it. I got home, and my wife went to check facebook. I didn’t really feel a compulsion to check it (except to see wedding photos friends posted over her shoulder) Twitter? Nope. Hassle free life. Relevantmag? Nope. Love the people, but didn’t feel that anything was missing.
• Temperatures, while at the same degree are completely relative. It was very hot for about a week last month. Up around 80, and extremely muggy. I hated every minute. In Hawaii, however, 80 feels pretty darn good. Between the low humidity and cool ocean breezes, the mid 80 area was rather nice.
• Stuff happens in the world, and without TV I don’t care. Swine Flu? What’s that? I had no idea anything actually happened outside of my stateroom/the beach/jungles. The “real” world didn’t exist, only the fantasy one in which I… actually lived. Things don’t seem to matter nearly as much without the alarmists on the news. I did see the president’s WHC dinner highlights after getting back though, and I have to admit that some parts were pretty funny, especially Wanda Sykes saying Sean Hannity could be tortured with a middle seat in coach.
• You forget how much work you have on your plate when you can’t do any of it for a week. I’ve only today realized just how much was on my plate and how little of it I can do readily. Yikes!
So there we have it. MakeSeriously is a jumble right now, but hopefully over the next couple of weeks it will get back in regular working order. If things clear up, some work may creep onto the portfolio page, and maybe we’ll try to make it a bit more exciting on the website. Tiny steps for now, but stay in touch.
Oh, hello…
Hello world wide web. hyper text transfer protocol. Web 2.0 - whatever you want to call it, really. It’s me, Dane Benton, and I am a new contributor to this wonderful conglomeration known as Make Seriously. I suppose at some point you may have expected it, with all of the recent mentions Josh has made of me in recent weeks. But now I’m an official contributor, and since I’ve already been referred to as the ‘hostest with the mostest’, I suppose it’s my turn to show you something I like.
For those of you who may not know, I am a student at Anderson University, graduating NEXT SATURDAY, May 9. This last semester has been an absolute blur, and as I prepare for the things that lie ahead, I don’t really have a lot of downtime. When I do have downtime, however, I am usually comfortably perched upon the red couch in my living room watching either 1.) The Biggest Loser or 2.) LOST. While these are two completely different shows (which both ironically deal with ‘losing’…) they are my solace from the hectic life of a senior in college.
Most of the advertising that occurs during both of these shows is awful, and since I don’t have the luxury of DVR, I suffer through it. But one night while watching one of these shows, I saw an ad that made me stop and actually pay attention because it caught my attention in a new way. You may have seen it - you may have not… but don’t fret, because the awesome(ness) that is YouTube has allowed me to post it here.
It really puts things in perspective, and made me think — I’m pretty sure that’s why I like it. As a designer (and human) I like to make people think and do things that are different in some way. There’s nothing like challenging the status quo - so do something different today (and why not leave me a nice little comment while you’re at it?!). I wish you a happy weekend, readers. I will try my hardest not to disappoint. And—many thanks to josh for rendering my hair almost perfectly — that’s why he’s paid the big bucks I suppose.